The wartime setting of London at Christmas showed the fighting spirit of the Brits at this time. The author develops the characters well, especially the character of Jo Brogan and her interesting family. Tommy and his brother were also interesting and well-developed characters. Although I enjoyed much of the prose, which showed both the good and bad of wartime London, there were a few sections that I felt a little more uncomfortable with as a reader. The first part that I felt seemed out of place in the book was Lou's attempted seduction of Tommy which, although showing how Tommy actually felt for Jo and his ability to reject her advances no matter how much he wanted to act on them, I found the language rather graphic and unnecessary. However, the book overall was an interesting account of a diverse group of people during this time, and I enjoyed the book overall, perhaps I just imagined it would read more like an account of classical Hollywood than 50 Shades of Grey.